


Obscenities

by Arlome, aurora_australis



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Just so much smut, Phrack Fucking Friday, References to Shakespeare, Smut, Swearing, War, War Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24547099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arlome/pseuds/Arlome, https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_australis/pseuds/aurora_australis
Summary: Language is powerful.Jack Robinson acquired that knowledge early. Even as a young boy he was an avid student, and just by watching and listening he learned how deep an insult could cut and how a kind word could be a balm. So, from an early age, he was careful with what he said, lest a stray phrase injure or maim. Language was powerful and words had meaning and he… he was in control. He was a considerate student who became a careful man.But sometimes…Or, 5 times Jack loses control +1 time he can’t.
Relationships: Jack Robinson/Rosie Sanderson, Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson
Comments: 65
Kudos: 224





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bluecityrose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluecityrose/gifts), [whopooh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whopooh/gifts).



> In the words of a modern day prophet, oops we did it again. 
> 
> Except not oops because we very intentionally teamed up to write this gift for two of the loveliest ladies in fandom - Happy Birthday whopooh and Bluecityrose, you poetic noble land mermaid birthday twins! We hope you and everyone reading this can take a brief repose from real life with some fictional detectives who will absolutely need to hydrate by the end of this.
> 
> This is a five times fic, but because one doesn’t write such things in the summary: _Five Times Jack Says Fuck + One Time He Can’t_
> 
> What can we say? We’re simple authors with simple dreams. 
> 
> Mind the rating and tags and enjoy!
> 
> P.S. If you’re surprised this is E rated, so are we! But like Phryne and Jack we… sort of got carried away. 
> 
> P.P.S. For those that like to avoid (or are looking for specifically), all the angst and war imagery is in Chapter 1, and the E rating doesn’t kick in until Chapter 2 (though Chapter 1 is definitely M).

**\----------5----------**

“Are you drunk?”

It’s a fair question, given the way he’s been swaying towards her whenever they turn a corner, but it fails to account for the fact that he will take any opportunity to sway towards her, to touch her, now that he can. He’d worry she was serious, but the barely suppressed giggle under the question tips him off that she is just teasing. In truth, they are both quite tipsy, but not drunk, which in Jack’s opinion is just perfect.

Like his bride.

He smiles down at her and squeezes the hand he is holding. “Never with you, m’lady,” he assures her. “It would be too great a risk.” At her slightly puzzled look he leans in to speak low in her ear. “Too much drink may provoke the desire, but it takes away the performance.”

Rosie laughs, bright and happy, and he is euphoric at the sound. “Shakespeare, Jack? And a tragedy no less. How brave… aren’t you worried about setting the wrong mood?”

In response, he stops, takes her in his arms and begins to lead them in a clumsy, stumbling dance, somewhere between a waltz and a tango, right there on the sidewalk. This time she does not even attempt to suppress the giggle. 

“My only mood is love,” he tells her, twirling her in closer.

“You’re incorrigible,” she reprehends, pressing into him.

“Only when it comes to you,” he replies with a wink, turning her so they are once more facing home.

Home.

He smiles at the thought, takes her hand, and resumes their walk, quicker now as the desire that had been a quiet ember throughout the Fireman and Policeman’s Ball begins to flare in earnest, fanned by the oxygen that is her smile, the kindling that is her laugh.

With their new pace they make it home quickly. Jack extracts his key and opens the door for her. She touches his cheek as she passes, dropping her hand to grab his and pull him into their little terrace house in Richmond. It’s not much, but it’s theirs, and in only two months Rosie has turned it into a real home.

He shuts the door behind them and pulls her toward him, leaning down to kiss her softly, slowly, the embers igniting as she moans into his mouth; Jack has to resist the urge to move against her at the sound. Instead, he threads his fingers through her hair and deepens the kiss. She moans again and he moves to her jaw, then her neck. Rosie grabs the lapels of his suit coat and pulls him towards her and the fire becomes a blaze, the dancing and the walk and the wine combining in the most wonderful way. He returns to her mouth, kissing her more intensely now as he leads them once again in a different dance.

As they cross the threshold, he begins to undo her buttons, spinning her slightly to allow easier access to the ones in the back and her now bare shoulder. As more of her flawless skin is revealed to him, he briefly pauses in his ministrations. “Is this alright?” he murmurs against her neck.

She nods, enthusiastically, and he is elated. It’s not that she hasn’t been eager before, she most definitely has. But he can never quite shake the niggling thought that it could be _better_. Not that it’s bad, not at all. It’s pleasant and nice and he loves being so close to her. No, he’s definitely been enjoying it, for the most part, and she always seems pleased by the experience, even if she’s not quite as pleased as he’s heard she could be. As he’d like her to be. As he so badly wants her to be.

He lays a few lingering kisses to the soft, pale skin of her shoulder, snakes a hand around her waist, his fingers resting just above the pubic bone. A slight press of the pads against her lovely frock elicits a shuddering little gasp that leaves him absolutely and unexpectedly famished — for her, for the taste of her skin, for the heat of her body. He pulls her a little closer to his chest, a little tighter, and buries his nose in the crook of her neck.

The state of his hunger is nothing new, of course, Jack has always had a healthy appetite. And it’s not just the affections of his wife he longs for; he’d happily consume good food, good company, good music, books — _especially_ books. He’s a bibliophile and his hunger is fierce, slackened only by devouring book after musty book. The subject matters little; the young copper from Richmond is a striving intellectual and his greed for knowledge is practically avaricious. Astronomy, Psychics, Linguistics, Gothic novels, plays from Ancient Greece — they all find their way to his groaning bookshelves. Rosie encourages his interest in literature, her eyes soft and bright whenever he reads to her in deep, husky tones. She’s proud of him and his talents, thinks him immensely clever — he knows that — and dusts the many books in their growing library with much love and care. 

Jack doesn’t know what she’d make of his new reading material; cannot guess what she’d think of him for wishing to satisfy one hunger with another. Would she blush in mortification at the liberties he’d presume to take with her, at the ones he is already taking with the law? Or would she smile and take him into her body and shudder beneath him like he desperately wants her to? 

He chances upon the book during one of his breaks. It’s the night shift, and the Station is quiet. His DI is slumped over the many reports scattered across his desk, having fallen asleep, once again, over the tedious task of reading the files. It’s such a late hour, after all; the drunkards in the cells are sleeping quite heavily, and no one is likely to barge in through the door, demanding the immediate investigation of a crime, so Jack allows himself one swift tea break amongst the newly confiscated publications.

A new crate of books was hauled in at the beginning of the week and stashed away in the back of the evidence room, somewhere between a rusty knife from an old 1892 murder and a bloody heel used in a domestic dispute a few years back. And there, destined to gather dust till the end of days, Jack finds it, resting in obscene peace: a black book with a very _distinctive_ cover.

He doesn’t blush when he picks it up, doesn’t colour when he opens it to find illustrations and diagrams and all sorts of what his mother would call depravities. He doesn’t flush when he spends the rest of his lazy shift reading an entire chapter on kissing, but by the end of the night — once the book is devoured and memorised and stuffed back into the crate — there’s a determined glint in his eyes.

Jack Robinson is a man with a plan. 

Rosie’s softs sighs bring him back to the moment. He tightens his arms around her torso, kisses the spot where her jaw meets her ear, nuzzles at her soft hair. She smells of lavender, fresh and delicately sweet, and he closes his eyes to better take her in. 

He’ll plant lavender in their garden tomorrow.

“Bedroom, Mrs Robinson?” he murmurs in her ear and Rosie hums and arches backwards just a little, just enough for Jack to lower his lips to her mouth. 

“Yes, Constable,” she sighs, and her breath, hot and heavy, smells of almonds and wine. 

Their bedroom is dark and a little too cold for his liking, but Rosie doesn’t seem to mind. He stands transfixed as she drops her frock from her shoulders, as she steps out of it as it pools around her ankles. Her breasts, small and lovely, are unbound, and the chill in the room leaves its mark on her rosy nipples. 

Jack can barely breathe as he watches her knickers suffer the same fate as the frock, as she bends just a little to untie one forest green ribbon, as his eyes follow the soft slide of a stocking down her creamy thigh. He falls to his feet before her, kisses one pale knee, hears her sigh softly from somewhere above his head, feels her fingers loosening the pomade out of his hair. He helps her step out of her shoes, unties the second ribbon, watches the stocking join its friend at her feet, pulls them off — one foot at a time — and throws them over his shoulder, to the sound of Rosie’s giggles.

He loves this sound — above all else, he loves this sound — and his chest expands and caves inwards all at once, when her fingers ghost over his cheekbones lovingly. He kisses her palms, kisses her thighs, decides to be bold, and lets his mouth wonder higher. The scent of her changes as he ascends; it becomes muskier, richer — more distilled. And quite overcome with the wish to put his reading to practice, kissing her at the crease of her thigh and pelvis, he murmurs, "Shakespeare writes of this too, you know." 

Rosie laughs above him, softly as silk, her fingers dancing over his shoulders.

"Does he, now?" 

Jack looks upwards, impossibly drunk on her, ardently enamored. Her face is flushed, lips parted, but the eyes are clear. 

"Would you like me to show you?" he breathes huskily. He's fueled by courage, driven by the desire to please her. He'd die in her lap, if she'd allow it. 

"No Shakespeare tonight, Jack," she answers just as quietly, her hips arching a little in his hands. "Just you." 

He understands her hesitance, doesn’t push her; there will be other times in their future for this sort of exploration, he can wait. 

“Come here, darling,” she whispers and he rises to his feet and presses her soft body to his. Briefly, he wonders if the fabric of the strict suit he’s still wearing is chafing her, but her sweet kisses and cool fingers quickly chase the thought away.

“Will...will you warm me up a little?” she asks shyly, her eyes downcast. “I’m a bit cold.”

“Should I fetch a blanket, Rosie, or — maybe you’d like my jacket?”

She laughs a little at his words, and it sounds giddy; nervous, even. “No, silly… I meant...well, Jack...I meant with your body.”

“Oh,” he mutters, thoughts of suave seduction flying right out of his head. “ _Oh_.”

“Yes, _oh_ ,” Rosie agrees, smiling good-naturedly, her fingers already making quick work of removing his tie. “So, do you think you could, perhaps, get slightly less dressed now?”

Jack doesn’t need to be told twice. He’s out of his clothes faster than one can utter his ridiculously common name. 

He doesn’t mind that Rosie giggles when he kicks his shoes off a little too enthusiastically, or when he hops on one leg — stark naked — as he tries to unclasp his sock garter; for how can he ever mind, when she’s flushed and happy, and so very at ease with this new intimacy between them?

And he laughs too, and pulls her towards him — his hard chest against her soft breasts — and soon enough, as they tumble into bed, entwined and grasping, the laughter turns to broken gasps.

He’s between her thighs before he knows it — their torsos pressed, their lips clasped — and he marvels at the spot of wetness on his lower abdomen — _there, right there_ — where he moves against her. Her want, her readiness, her enthusiasm at their approaching lovemaking — it’s _more,_ and Jack finds himself speechless and ecstatic at this welcome progression in their intimacy, as he slips into Rosie’s body with no difficulty at all. 

Her breath hitches, her neck arches; the palms of her hands dig into the bones of his shoulders. She pulls her knees upwards, pushes her perfect little breasts into his chest, and Jack flexes his hips against her pelvis.

“Is this alright, love?” he asks tenderly, his fingers sliding into her wavy hair. It’s soft as silk and twice as lovely, and spills over the pristine pillow like endless, cascading hills. 

“Yes,” she breathes, her eyes tightly shut, her moist mouth parted. “It’s...it feels… very good.” 

She’s tighter around him, hotter — more so than usual — and her soft, desperate gasps are almost enough to make him succumb; so when, at a particularly clever change in the angle of his thrusts, she cries out and squirms beneath him, Jack can’t stop the profanity from escaping his lips. More than a little overcome, his hips bucking slightly out of rhythm, he hangs his head and groans softly in her ear. 

“ _Fuck_.”

Rosie freezes beneath him in the exact same moment that he realises his transgression. Even in the semi-darkness of their bedroom, he can tell that she’s blushing furiously, no doubt mortified at the behavior of her tipsy husband.

“Rosie, God,” he stammers, his own cheeks warmer than he’d like them to be. “I — I’m so sorry, I don’t… don’t know what came over me — ”

Soft fingers graze his cheekbones, and he finally raises his eyes to look at her — _really_ look at her. 

“No…” Rosie whispers, and his breath catches in his throat at the sight of her biting on her lower lip. She looks slightly nervous as she speaks, but it doesn’t stop her: she’s always been brave and he loves her for it. “Can… can you do it again?”

Jack nearly perishes right there in her arms. 

“You… _want_ me to curse?”

“...yes.”

“Are you sure...?”

“ _Yes_!” she gasps, her fingers slipping from his cheekbones, dancing down his back. 

He vaguely considers resisting — it’s not proper; hardly the romantic declarations he ought to be sighing in his wife’s ear — but then she grabs at his backside, urging him to move again, and he stops thinking altogether.

“ _Fuck_ , Rosie,” he utters desperately into her hairline, pressing closer and deeper into her welcoming body.

“Oh God,” she whimpers, her fingers tightening on his arse, her thighs spasming against his hips. “Oh — oh God.”

Her lips find his shoulder and she grazes her teeth on his skin. Her hands — soft, small, so very delicate — move to his back, where they grasp at the muscles almost frantically. When her fingernails embed in his flesh and curl downwards, Jack reflects, rather deliriously, that there are worse ways to die than at the age of twenty-one, making love to one’s wife. 

Rosie’s lips move to his collarbone, then up his neck, and when she finally reaches his jaw, Jack manages to remember the hours of research he’s put into the study of the sensual, and, supporting himself on one forearm, snakes a hand down her body. It doesn’t take too long to find what he’s looking for, and he almost sighs in relief when his thumb slides over what must be Rosie’s clitoris. She jerks and gasps sharply at the contact, her brow furrowing, her lips parting, and he manages a few good circles before his finger slips — the angle is uncomfortable, his wrist twinges - and he loses the rhythm he’s built.

Jack’s about to flex a little, to change the angle, do something — _anything_ — to continue Rosie’s pleasure, when the lady in question takes matters into her own delicate hand. With an impatient huff that ingrains itself into Jack’s brain, to be forever revisited in future episodes of self-entertainment, Rosie nudges his hand away and takes over.

Jack curses.

The sight of her touching herself nearly undoes him. Her fingers slide past her curls, dip even lower, grazing him softly as he pushes into her. And when they glide a little upwards, and her wrist rotates, and she cries out, arching against him, Jack has to take a deep breath and concentrate really hard on Abbotsford’s score at the match from the previous week.

“Christ, _fuck,_ “ he blasphemes as he feels her shifting and pressing into him. She’s so very ready for him and assured of herself, that it takes his breath away, and his hips stutter, losing the pattern.

Rosie’s thighs tighten against him and she bites at her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, he fears.

“M-more!” she cries, her free hand coming up to squeeze his arm. “More, Jack!”

He speeds up, nearly there himself — but he’s determined, resolved to get her there first, ahead of him; always and forever, ahead of him. His lips find her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids.

“Fuck,” he groans almost gutterly against her mouth — and then, more desperately, with every shallow thrust, “fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

At last, with a final cry — he’s never heard her make a sound like this before — she shatters and shudders beneath him, nearly sobbing with release. He follows her almost instantaneously, spending himself deep within her pliant body, as they breathe hoarsely into each other’s mouths. 

When the sweat on their bodies begins to cool, Jack slips out of his recuperating wife, and falls backwards to his own side of the bed. Neither of them speaks for a while as they lie side by side and stare at the ceiling, too tired to move. 

“W-what... was that?” Rosie pants at last, her eyes wide and a little wild.

“That was what the French call ‘the little death’,” Jack huffs, and turns to smile at her. She’s flushed and sweaty and oh so lovely, and he’s ardently in love. He’d spend the rest of his life making love to her, if she would wish it.

“Jack Robinson!” She gasps and curls against him, her thigh coming to rest over his hips. “What have you been reading?”

Jack shrugs a little too smugly. He feels he’s earned a few moments of some self-complacency. 

“Oh, just bits and pieces,” he answers enigmatically, the deep, easy-going timbre of his voice hitching slightly as Rosie presses into his side.

“Speaking of reading,” she murmurs, her lips moist against his ear. “What was it you were saying about Shakespeare?” 

Jack kisses the first of many double kisses before the night is out.

**\----------4----------**

It always reeks of gunpowder and rot in the trenches. The stench of mud and blood and human excrement permeates the air, eliminating all fond memories of rolling hills and soft kisses and clear skies. The sodden earth is heavy with muck and death, the bodies of the bold a fine fertilizer for the greedy soil. It’s all a little too morbid for naive consumption, but nobody’s an innocent here anymore.

Jack lies sprawled on his back, head on a musty pillow, and lights up a cigarette. They’re all smoking like chimneys here in the trenches, between assaults; it fights off the stench of shit and spilling guts. 

He’s coughing up a storm, phlegm congealing his lungs, the unbearable dampness seeping through his uniform and creeping into his bones. He’d had a mild fever yesterday, but it is gone with the morning; even the common cold doesn’t wish to linger in this hell. Too bad, he thinks, he could have used the extra body heat.

There’s a parcel from home lying at the foot of the wooden plank he sleeps on; biscuits and clumsily-knit socks that are bound to come in handy, a letter, smelling of lavender, written in the loving hand of his wife. 

Jack brings the paper to his nose, inhaling greedily. The scent of Rosie’s skin — fresh out of the bath, slick with post-coital sweat, anointed with perfume — creeps into his sensory centre and he nearly groans with the intensity of his yearning for her. There’s a photograph, which he brings to his lips and kisses tenderly — the taste of her sticks to his tongue, the sight of her writhing beneath him, bathed in moonlight, scorches his mind. This is torture, pure and simple; he must have died in that awful turnip field outside and went to meet Old Scratch for his sins.

“What’re you reading there, Jackie boy?”

Jack exhales, ripped out of his memories unceremoniously by the loud, jovial tones of one Leslie Thomson, a childhood friend from Richmond and a right pain in his bloody arse. Nonetheless, he smiles a little at the interruption; it’s not entirely unwelcome. 

“A letter,” he says, voice too soft for this rotten place. “From Rosie.”

Leslie, a strapping, fair-haired young man, slumps onto Jack’s plank with little grace, leaving very little room for its original occupant. Jack briefly considers kicking him off it. 

“Really?” Leslie asks, his face a mask of excitement. It’s amazing how the man can keep his boundless cheer amidst this hell. “What news of Melbourne? How’s the wife doing?”

Jack lowers his eyes to the photograph and scans the lovely, seated figure meticulously; she’s beautiful, his Rosie, dressed in a fashionable dress, her hands clasped in her lap, pressed close to her body, the slight, almost unseen curve of her abdomen —

“Expecting,” he mumbles, looking upwards at his mate’s face. “I’m going to be a father, Lez.”

To the end of his days, Jack would swear that the large, boisterous man teared up at the news.

“Jack, mate — that’s damn good ... congratulations!” There’s a heavy thump against Jack’s leg, a hearty squeeze to his calf, a somewhat embarrassed clearing of the throat. ”Damn, we ought to toast this!”

“Nothing with, mate,” Jack laments, sitting up. “But I appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless.”

The silence stretches between them a little uncomfortably. They’re grown men — a copper and a mechanic — they’re soldiers, fighting for King and distant Country; sentimentalities and tears have no place in the trenches.

For want of something to do, Lez picks up the home-made parcel and empties the contents onto Jack’s plank. He shoves a biscuit in his mouth and dangles a pair of socks in front of Jack’s eyes.

“I see the Mrs is yet to refine her sewing skills,” he teases good-naturedly.

Jack rolls his eyes and snatches the socks from his large hands.

“Give it here,” he growls, smoothing down the invisible lines in the wool over his thigh. “And stop eating my biscuits, you oaf.”

Lez laughs and steals another baked treat, crunching loudly in defiance.

“Those who eat alone, die alone, Jackie boy,” he sing-songs, and, this time, Jack does shove him off the bunk.

There’s barely suppressed laughter coming from the farther end of the dugout, as Lez, grinning and still chewing Rosie’s delicious biscuits, rises to his feet. 

“So,” he asks with absolutely no hard feelings once he swallows, and nods at the paper still clutched in Jack’s hand. “When is she expecting the bub to arrive?”

Jack consults the latter, scanning the neat hand lovingly.

“Early August, she says.”

Lez regains his seat at the end of the wooden plank and snorts.

“That’s at least four months away, mate. We’ll be home by then.”

Leslie’s undefeated optimism makes Jack almost giddy with his own, more collected, excitement. For just a moment, he allows himself to picture Rosie holding a swaddled bundle in her arms; a sweet babe with her eyes and his nose, with her lips and his ears, and ten little fingers and ten tiny toes.

“God, let it be so, Lez,” he breathes, overcome with longing. What wouldn’t he give for five minutes with her in his arms?

Lez leans over him, thumps him sympathetically on the shoulder; Jack can feel the lungs rattling in his chest.

“You’ll have time to watch Rosie get as big as a house, mate! You’ll see, we’ll be home by then!”

Jack cannot wait.

***

The explosion comes out of nowhere.

There’s ringing in his ears, smoke in his lungs, the stench of gunpowder up his nose. He’s choking on foul air, gagging on the stench of blood, his eyes are burning with acrid fumes. The silence amidst the ringing is deafening. If he closes his eyes, he can almost picture himself asleep in his bed back in Melbourne; perhaps, if he squeezes them tightly enough, Rosie might join him.

The silence is short-lived — the noise and cacophony of battle come crashing on him with the weight of a thousand anvils and he staggers to the ground, his legs shaking, knees folding beneath him. The trench is filled with the bodies of the dead and dying, the sight wrenching his stomach, and he finds himself vomiting tea and biscuits where he sits. He can’t think, can’t move, he wishes that the ground would swallow him whole.

The screams and groans around him rouse him from his shock and he looks around, scanning for familiar faces. _Where’s Lez? He ought to find Lez; Lez would know... he really needs to —_

Lead-like dread fills his stomach, his heart threatening to burst out of his chest.

There, not four feet off, at the turn of the trench, slumped against the sandbags. _There —_

He’d recognise the form anywhere, know that fair hair from a mile off — _where’s that oaf’s helmet, why isn’t he wearing his helmet? Why is he lying so still? Doesn’t he know he needs to move?_ — that ridiculous hair, as fair as any maid’s. 

No.

_No._

He makes himself get up and crawl towards the still giant on trembling forearms, climbing over strewn pots and guns and bodies in the process; grabs at the torn army jacket, presses on the open abdominal wound. 

“Lez, wake up, mate,” he whimpers, his fingers, slick with blood, slipping and sliding in their duty. “Lez, Lez, please, no…”

But the eyes looking upwards are not closed in sleep; open and unseeing, they’re trained on the grey skies above, the blue in them as muted as the heavens. 

“Fuck!” the vulgarity is ripped from his throat in anguish — once, twice, a hundred times more — as he screams himself hoarse, cradling the shell of his friend in his arms; and then — much softer, infinitely softer — with tears staining his blackened cheeks, “Fuck, Lez; fuck. _Fuck.”_

They’re kids again, carefree and wild; two boys giving their mothers much trouble. Their bicycles groaning as they ride uphill. There are sunshine and green hills and ham, cheese and mustard pickle sandwiches, and he lets Lez eat some of his share, too. Lez is such a giant, he always feels like a dwarf next to him.

He reaches out to close the beloved open eyes with shaking fingers, leaving smudges of blood on the already cooling eyelids and cheeks.

And sometime later — minutes, hours; maybe even ages — when the medics arrive, he’s still clutching Lez close to his chest.

**\----------3----------**

Jack resists the urge to slam the door behind him, but just barely. Most days he blames himself, equally if not more, for their arguments, but today… today he thinks she is being deliberately obtuse. 

And it makes him angry. 

No, angry is too meek a word for how he’s feeling. He is incensed.

He stews in this feeling all the way to the station, steeping in his growing fury the whole way, and like tea brewed too long he is bitter by the time he arrives. 

He flings open the door and is met by the enthusiastic Constable Miller, who, as always, resembles nothing so much as a golden retriever, snapping his head up happily at Jack’s arrival and waving eagerly.

“Good afternoon, Detective Sergeant!”

Jack doesn’t have the energy or temperament for this today, “this” being Miller’s general earnestness, but he tries not to show it. The lad seems to view him as some kind of mentor, and while Jack could think of better mentees, he could also think of worse. He nods a hello to Miller who only adds to the puppy analogy by loping over to him.

“I have those witness statements from the Chapel Street robbery.”

“Good, good,” Jack mutters, hanging up his hat and coat and taking the files. He'd been at another more pressing crime scene when the jewelry store robbery had been reported and had needed to send over some constables to secure the scene and interview the witnesses in his absence. Being the senior constable on the scene, he’d put Miller in charge until he could take over. It was Miller’s first big case and clearly the lad was incredibly anxious to prove himself.

Jack reads through the statements at the front desk, with Miller watching him out of the corner of his eye in a most unsubtle manner. Jack finishes reading and frowns. 

“Where are the employee statements?” he asks. “These are just the customers.”

Miller stands up straight to answer him, taking out a notebook as he does. 

“Oh, well, the employees,” he checks his notes, “a Miss Benson and a Miss Merle, they were too distraught to be interviewed. So we said they could come into the station today instead.”

Jack looks sharply. “You didn’t interview them?”

Miller shifts from one foot to the other. “No? They… they were crying, sir. We thought it best to let them go.”

Jack’s mood is dark, he knows it. Knows he should leave it until he is calmer, cooler, more in control.

But he has been steeping so long by now he is acrid, even to his own good sense.

“Constable Miller, do you know how many robberies are inside jobs?”

Miller’s ears are practically twitching — he can sense trouble, but he doesn’t yet know where it’s coming from.

Jack leaves the question dangling in the air and stalks over to the telephone. He has the operator put him through to the jewelry story and asks for either Miss Benson or Miss Merle.

He nods into the telephone and hangs up, but his hand stays on the receiver, gripping it tightly in anger and frustration.

“Neither Miss Benson nor Miss Merle came in today. The manager doesn’t know where they are…” His hand is shaking so he grips the receiver harder, but it is too late. The dam bursts.

“Goddammit, Miller, what the _fuck_ were you thinking?”

Everyone in the room stops. 

Jack Robinson does not curse. Not like that, not at work and not _at_ someone. This is a fact at City South, like the terrible tea and the squeaky cell door. Jack does not curse at witnesses, criminals, or constables.

Except, it seems, when he does.

Two other constables and a Senior Sergeant are frozen in place, except for their heads which swivel between Jack and Constable Miller. For his part, the young man turns red almost instantly, mortification and consternation battling for dominance, and the contrast exaggerates the fairness of his hair, the youth of his features. Jack’s ears are pounding with anger but he can still see and as he squints in concentration at Miller he realizes, for the first time, that in the right light he looks a little like a mechanic from Richmond he used to know. Jack feels the recognition like a punch to the chest and slams his free hand down on the countertop to ground himself. Constable Miller doesn’t know any of this, though, and, clearly fighting back a more embarrassing reaction, mutters some kind of apology and beats a hasty retreat towards the cells.

Jack closes his eyes, a letter and a biscuit and an explosion sitting right behind the lids, threatening to burst forth if he opens them too soon. So he doesn’t. He keeps them closed, evens out his breathing, settles himself in the moment.

When he feels like he can, he opens his eyes and looks around, only to find himself alone in the room, everyone else having found something urgent to do elsewhere.

Jack sighs, feels the small remainder of his residual anger leave his body on the breath. He smooths his hair down — it’s probably fine but one can never be too composed — and makes his way down to the cells in search of Miller.

He finds him in the back, ostensibly sweeping.

Jack leans against the wall. “Constable…” he begins, not quite sure what to say. The lad messed up, certainly, but the punishment, as it were, had not fit the crime.

“That was uncalled for,” he says finally. Miller doesn’t look up from his task.

“It’s fine, sir.”

It’s not.

“Matthew,” Jack says, using the young man’s Christian name for perhaps the third time in their acquaintance. “I’m sorry.”

Miller does look up at that, but his expression is… hard. Harder than perhaps Jack has ever seen it before. 

“No, sir, you were right. I was too trusting. Won’t happen again.”

“I didn’t mean… you can have compassion and still be thorough,” Jack tells him.

“Doesn’t seem like I can, sir.” He puts the broom back against the wall. “Will there be anything else?”

Jack shakes his head and Miller stalks past him and up the stairs.

Now is not the time, Jack knows, to push it. He’ll try again later, but Miller is too hurt, too embarrassed right now to hear him. 

He hopes he will though, eventually, because while Jack could think of better mentors for Miller, he could also think of worse. 

Jack sighs again and looks around. Takes in the fallout. He had been a ticking bomb all day, a lit fuse directed at his marital woes. But the problem with bombs, as Jack knows excruciatingly well, is that they don’t always go off where you expect.

The rest of the day passes in a bit of a haze, Miller successfully avoiding him all the while, and Jack stays late, long after his shift is over, after everyone else caught up in the blast is gone.

She’s in bed by the time he gets home, but he can tell by the faint light creeping underneath their bedroom door that she’s not asleep.

He could go in, apologize to her, hope for an apology from her in return. Or, baring all that, just hope for a connection. He could so easily just turn left, slip into their bed, slip into her: he knows she will welcome it. She always does. It’s the one thing they never argue about. He can make love to his wife and hope that that love is enough to last them through another day, another argument.

He almost does it. But the memory of the letter and the biscuit and the beaten down constable with the far too fair hair are just too strong. If she asks him to swear in her ear tonight he can’t be sure what will happen.

And he won’t lose control again today.

Jack turns right instead, takes himself off to the nursery that never was, and falls asleep on the sofa.


	2. Chapter 2

**\----------2----------**

“Have a good night, sir!”

In the doorway, Jack freezes, and feels immediately as he did as a lad, his hand caught in the biscuit tin. Which is ridiculous, of course; he’s a grown man, a senior detective inspector, who won’t be shamed by something so insignificant.

And besides, his hands haven’t been anywhere that licentious in years.

He forces a smile as he turns to face his constable, fingers gripping the briefcase a little tighter as he does. “Thank you, Collins. You too. Any… any plans for your day off?”

Behind the desk, Hugh grins happily. “Oh yes. Dottie’s been baking up a storm for Miss Fisher’s return, so I’ve been conscripted into kneading duty.” He gives a cheerful laugh. “Just like boxing, but my opponent smells a lot better.”

“Good man,” Jack tells him, pleased the two newlyweds are finding their way with relative ease. 

“Of course. We’re all excited she’ll be back so soon. Just a few more days now, I guess.”

“That appears to be the case,” Jack agrees, with far more detachment than he feels. “Lucky she caught up with her father’s ship in Darwin, otherwise we might have been blessed with months of peace and quiet.” Hugh laughs in that slightly confused way he has when he’s not sure whether or not Jack is being serious, and Jack decides not to enlighten him about that particular issue just now.

“Enjoy your day off,” he tells the younger man instead, nodding a goodbye as he leaves the station and makes his way to his police issue vehicle. He tosses the briefcase on the seat next to him and shoots it a sideways look.

Then rolls his eyes.

Really, this is ridiculous: it's barely even evidence.

He shakes his head at his own foolishness, starts the car and drives home.

***

Jack is well into chapter four, an empty plate of sandwiches and an almost empty glass of whisky next to his comfortably worn leather chair, when there is a knock at the door.

He ignores it.

It’s almost certainly a neighbor, and he’s in no mood to look at a broken fence post or get a cat down from a tree.

A minute later there is another knock, more instant this time, and he sighs. Setting his book aside, he goes to the front door and opens it, five excuses for being unavailable just now on the tip of his tongue.

At the sight of her they all fly out of his head.

“Hello, Jack,” she says softly.

It appears everything has gone out of his head because he just stares at her, dumbfounded.

She smiles at him, amused, and shifts the bag she is holding from her right hand to her left. His continued silence elicits a cocked eyebrow and an exaggerated sigh. “I’m glad you finally answered the door, I was beginning to wonder if I’d be out here all night.”

Jack shakes his head at her, finally finds his voice, dazed though it remains. “I’m surprised you didn’t just pick the lock.”

“I’d never enter without permission, Jack.” She moves her free hand forward as if to smooth his lapel, but as he’s already down to his waistcoat she pulls it back awkwardly. “So… do I have it?” The question is cheeky, but there is a note of real anxiety under it, which is what finally snaps him out of his stupor.

“Yes, yes of course.” He opens the door wide to let her in. “Please.”

She steps across the threshold and looks around, the detective in her always detecting. She removes her hat as she takes it all in.

“You’re early,” he remarks awkwardly. “We weren’t expecting you for a few more days.”

“Yes, about that…” She turns to look at him a little sheepishly, her hands worrying at the cloche as she does. “I may have exaggerated my travel time back from Darwin.”

“For what purpose?” he asks, reaching out to take her hat. He misses though, or she does, and they drop it to the floor instead. He reaches down swiftly to retrieve and hang it and buys himself a moment to steady his nerves as he does. 

“I thought...perhaps…” She moves closer to him, then takes a step back: this is a new kind of waltz for them both. “I thought it might be nice to have a few days to ourselves. Before all the palaver of my return.”

“I thought you thrived on palaver,” he replies, taking her bag — more deliberately than the hat and thank Christ he doesn’t drop it — and setting it down.

“I’m a woman who thrives on many things,” she reminds him. “Company… solitude… whisky.”

“Is that a hint?” he asks, fighting back a smirk.

“A too subtle one, apparently. If you have to ask.”

He chuckles and nods down the hall. “This way.” They enter his study and he walks over to the drink cart to pour her an ample finger.

She is hovering a little uncertainly by the door and the well-mannered host in Jack takes over. 

“Please take a seat,” he invites her, forgetting entirely what he’d been doing before she arrived. 

“What’s this, Jack?”

He remembers immediately at her words and turns just in time to see her pick up the book.

Damn.

He makes it three fingers instead and decides they can share.

With a sigh he turns and walks back to her, taking a rather large sip of the whisky as he does. “If I told you it was a book, would you leave it at that?”

“Not a chance. Jack, is this what I think it is?”

He is blushing, he knows he is blushing, but he tries to prevail nonetheless. Grown man, he reminds himself, he’s a grown man and a book is not a biscuit tin.

“It’s been in my evidence lockup since Constable Martin found it at the station. I guess Collins didn’t need it for fishing.”

She looks at him, her eyes bright with glee. “And you brought it home because…?”

“I thought I ought to return it to its rightful owner?”

It comes out as a question, though he doubts she would have been fooled regardless.

“What makes you think it’s mine?” she asks. 

“The pages are dog-eared. I took an educated guess.”

“Well guessed,” she concedes, flipping through it. “And you’re sure that’s the _only_ reason you brought it home?”

He shrugs, takes another generous sip. _Grown man, grown man_...

“Well, as I said… we were expecting you in a few days.”

She positively beams at the implications. “Jaaaaack, I am _honoured_. Is this a tutorial?”

He plucks the book from her hand, exchanging it for the glass. “Merely a refresher, Miss Fisher, thank you very much.” He shrugs again. “I have actually read it before. A long time ago. And, frankly, I’m not as impressed this time around.”

Her eyes widen. “Really?”

He doesn’t know which confession she’s reacting to so he chooses to respond to the second — less baggage there. “I find I now prefer more of a story in my banned materials. Something to be invested in. This is just… mechanics.”

She turns on her heel and heads towards his bookshelf and he realizes his mistake immediately. She is scanning each shelf with the critical eye of an experienced bibliophile.

“So what else do we have, Jack? What glorious images and pretty words are you hiding in this library?”

He sinks into his chair and finishes the whisky he’d been drinking earlier, watching her work.

“You won’t find anything,” he tells her, knowing she very well might; he might be careful, but she is determined.

“Well that’s disappointing,” she pouts, though she is still searching. “I was hoping you could help me expand my collection.”

“Well if that’s what you’re hoping for, I might not be your man,” he concedes, then winces at the tone of his voice, which is less teasing than he’d intended.

She stops her investigation and turns, regarding him with a critical, though not unsympathetic, eye. “Jack… I thought we were through with all that.”

“We are,” he assures her. “We are. It’s just…” He shrugs one more time, offers her a small self-deprecating smile. “I wasn’t expecting you for a few more days.”

“Ah.” She glances between him and the door. “Would you like me to leave?” She means it, he can tell, and he leaps to his feet to disabuse her of the notion. 

“No! No. Just…” He glances at the book, taps his finger on the chair back absently, sighs. “I guess I was hoping I’d have time for a refresher first.”

“Would it help,” she begins slowly, moving towards him a little, though he’s not sure she realizes she's doing it, “if I told you I was nervous too?”

“You?” He regards her skeptically at the notion. “Nervous?”

She crosses her arms and rolls her eyes. “Yes _me_. I do get nervous on occasion, Jack. I’m confident, not psychotic.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he reminds her, and she swats at his arm though that time his tone was definitely teasing. 

“It’s… as you say,” she continues. “You’re good with the story. I’m generally… better at the mechanics. Which are lovely,” she reminds him, taking a sip of her drink. “But this just feels more… important. Larger, somehow.”

“It does,” he agrees, reaching over to steal the whisky back. He brings the glass to his lips, watching her carefully, and sees that she means it. Sees the telltale worrying of her bottom lip, and how she doesn’t seem to know exactly what to do with her hands now that he’s stolen back their drink, and it steadies him a little — not because he wants her nervous, but because he wants _her_ , nerves and confidence and whisky and all. He wants their story, the one they’re writing together, right now.

The rest is just mechanics.

He takes another sip, then hands her back the glass. “It does,” he repeats, turning slowly and returning to his seat. “And liable to cast a rather large shadow as a result. But that’s... that’s why we have each other, isn’t it?”

Her responding smile is bright enough to burn away every shadow in Australia.

“It is,” she agrees, placing the mostly empty glass on the side table and catching one of his hands in her own. “And if you’re still interested in that refresher, Jack, I’ve been told I am an _excellent_ tutor.”

He cocks an eyebrow and pulls her down onto his lap.

“Chapter one…” she begins, leaning in. “Kissing.” 

She brushes her lips against his, soft as a whisper. “Hello, Jack,” she murmurs. She presses her lips against his again, more pressure this time, more intent, but still chaste by almost any standard. When she pulls back, she looks into his eyes, searching for something. Permission, perhaps? Direction? He decides to give her both.

Jack smiles at her, cradles her head with his left hand. “Hello, Phryne.” He pulls her towards him then, less soft, more insistent, and she responds immediately, parting her lips to grant him entry. He kisses her and kisses her and kisses her, as long as he’d wanted to on that airfield, if aerodynamics hasn’t interfered.

Phryne’s arms snake around his neck, keeping him close and close and closer still. Her fingers toy with the short hairs at the nape of his neck as she tilts her head back and he takes the hint, kissing her jaw softly, then working his way down her neck. She hums a little at the sensation, and he spares a glance up; her eyes are closed, but she is smiling, and it’s the most lovely thing he’s ever seen. 

After long, long minutes spent like this, she shifts a little to straddle him and his fingers graze her knee as she does. A smile breaks across his face as he continues kissing down to her collarbone. His voice, when he speaks, is rough, but he is just pleased it works at all. “Chapter two, I believe, is hands.”

“It is,” she confirms, a satisfied sigh escaping her lips.

“Would you… is that alright?”

She tilts her head down to look at him, her lips and eyes both smiling. “Oh, Jack, I wish you would,” she tells him and he nods, right up until she begins a gentle assault of his own neck and he loses the ability to do so.

His hand on her knee tentatively moves up her thigh, reaching the top of her stocking and caressing the silk softly before unclasping the tie. He rolls the stocking down to her knee and then moves his hand back up, drawing lazy shapes with the fingers of his left hand even as the right dips below the hem of her blouse; it is a gauzy number and easily accommodates his wandering digits. His thumb grazes the bottom of her breast before he slips around to her back to explore her spine — noting her lack of brassiere — using the movement to pull her towards him. She uses the momentum to her advantage, leaning up to capture his mouth again, which he gladly surrenders. His right hand still stroking her back, his left begins moving further up her thigh, teasing the crease where it meets her hip, and he moves to nibble on her ear, careful to avoid her earring. He is surrounded by her, her smell and her sounds and her joy, and when she sneaks down to the juncture of his neck and gives it a bite, he doesn’t mean to, but he can’t help himself.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he moans into her ear and feels her laugh breathlessly in shocked delight above him. “Sorry,” he mutters, but he’s not. 

“No need to apologize,” she assures him. “You’re just skipping ahead a few chapters.”

“I’m a fast learner,” he assures her, his attention on the shell of her ear.

“And I’m also wondering in which of your high class, storied erotica you learned that.”

“Well,” he begins, pulling back slightly, a sly look in his eye. “They’re not _all_ pretty words.”

She laughs again, which quickly turns to a gasp as his fingers slip under her smalls, past the wet curls to circle her entrance. He does it again and then a third time and she shoots him an unamused look.

“I’d never enter without permission, Phryne.” He’s teasing, throwing her words back at her, but he also means it; this is, after all, important.

“Permission granted, you bastard,” she mutters against his neck and he takes her at her word, slipping in one finger as his thumb aims higher.

She sighs, a small guttural moan escaping on the breath and he leans up to kiss her neck as his hand works lower. 

It’s been a while since he was in this position, and it’s not quite like riding a bike, if only because that is a pastime he finds just as enjoyable alone, but given the noises she’s making he’s clearly not forgotten entirely what to do. 

His rhythm keeps faltering, though, as his hand is constricted by her silk knickers, and he huffs in irritation. She notices, and with a sly smile slides off him and shimmies out of them. She returns and climbs back into his lap, and he pulls her towards him immediately, kissing her deeply and slipping once again beneath her skirt and inside her.

His hand no longer caught, he laughs quietly to himself.

“Penny for them?” she asks, eyes closed in pleasure as he works.

“I was just thinking you’re far superior to a biscuit tin.”

She opens her eyes at that, confused but somehow charmed by his seeming non sequitur. He doesn’t offer an explanation, just claims her mouth once again, and she shakes her head fondly but doesn’t break the kiss. She is moving against him now, riding his hand slowly, surely, her pleasure building with every thrust of his fingers and slide of his thumb. Time stretches out as he happily drowns in her moans and her scent and her heat.

“Jack…” she whispers. “That’s… oh. Oh!”

Her cry urges him faster and she follows his lead — there really is a first time for everything — until she is chanting his name under her breath and then suddenly she’s not and he can feel her come against his hand and good _God_ he should get a commendation for not following her right over as she does.

He doesn’t though, overwhelmed though he is, just slows, slows, slows downs and waits for her to still and calm under his now trembling hand.

Eventually she catches her breath and grins at him. “Well…”

“Yes, well.”

She stands and he is disappointed for a moment, before she catches the expression and shakes her head. “Just wondering where the bedroom is, Jack.”

“Oh, of course.” He moves to stand too, gingerly due to his current state and as he does she notices his desk. A delighted smile comes over her face and she hops up on it.

“Just like old times, eh, Jack?” She leans back swinging her legs as she had during the damned tennis case, as guileless now as she was then, and he can’t help himself; he surges towards her and kisses her again, the momentum of his body pushing her back down against his — thank _Christ_ — bare desk. 

“Jack!” Her joy is palpable, as, he is sure, is his erection, but she seems pleased about both.

As slow and gentle and careful as they’d been in the chair, they are none of those things on the desk. Her blouse is unbuttoned before he even realizes his fingers are working on it and then they are at work again releasing her second stocking and he’s pushing it off her thigh impatiently. It stays stuck somewhere past her shin, but neither of them pays it any further heed. 

She unbuttons his waistcoat and then her hands find his waistband, fumbling with the buttons there, desperately trying to reach skin and he’s rucking up her skirt and dear _Lord_ this is like a hundred fantasies he’s had and chastised himself for before except it’s so much better because it’s real. The hard edge of the table is uncomfortable against his thighs and it grounds him in the moment even as he grounds himself against her. 

She seems to have his trousers under control now, so he leans down to tease a nipple he’d only ever seen backlit in a gentleman’s club before. 

This is better now too.

As he runs the flat of his tongue across the decidedly not flat of her chest she is effectively trapped under him and so he should not be, but he is, surprised to feel her use her feet to push his trousers down past his hips. 

He chuckles at her ingenuity and looks up at her from his place of worship.

“Is this chapter three?” he asks.

She shakes her head. “I’m fairly sure office furniture is at least chapter six.”

He laughs and she uses the distraction to push him up and set to work on his shirt, unbuttoning it with a speed he’d be impressed by except she’s Phryne Fisher and she always goes faster than he thinks possible.

She shoves it and his braces off his shoulders and he helps her by removing his singlet himself. She grins at the sight and he grins back which turns into a moan as she reaches into his smalls to stroke him.

“Phryne…” he murmurs, closing his eyes at the sensation, her strokes sure and punctuated by little kisses and bites on his bare shoulders. He can feel her smile against his skin and it just makes him more desperate for her. He gently pushes her back down to the desk, thrusting into her clever hand as he does.

“Jack!” Her exclamation is less excited surprise this time and he forces himself to stop and look at her. “If we’re… my device. It’s in my bag.”

Jack looks at her, sheepishly for the first time since they began, and reaches down into a bag lying next to the desk. “I visited the chemist’s earlier this evening… just in case, we…” He coughs and she raises an eyebrow. Jack smiles and shrugs. “Well, I was expecting you in a few days.”

“No need to wait, Jack,” she fairly purrs at him. “You can have me right now.”

He would roll his eyes but he finds the idea of looking away from her now, even for a moment, unappealing. 

He opens the tin and removes the french letter from its wrapping, then watches her watching him as he sheathes himself. He moves closer to her once more and she widens her legs in welcome to accommodate him.

He leans down to kiss her again and as he does he accidentally rubs himself against her still sensitive clit. She keens, so he does it again, and then a third time just because he can.

“Which chapter is this, do you think?” he asks against her lips.

“Just skip to the end, you son of a —” she cuts herself off with a gasp and plants her hands on his arse as he reads ahead, so to speak, and she squeezes the muscles of his bottom with clear enthusiasm before sliding them up his back and to his shoulders. He plants his hands on the desk and begins a steady, even rhythm that speeds up almost immediately at the realization that this is actually, finally, miraculously happening.

He moves inside her with the enthusiasm of a man who has had Phryne Fisher sit on his desk a hundred times before and wanted to do this during at least half of them. Watching her now — hair wild, chest flushed with arousal, breasts bouncing with each thrust — he wonders how he’ll ever get any work done here again.

She slides her legs up his hips and pushes herself up on her elbows and the angle change is exquisite. Jack pulls his hands back to her ankles, caressing the soft skin and forgotten stocking, and kisses one knee, eliciting an unexpected giggle.

He gives her a look and is surprised at the somewhat sheepish smile she gives him back.

“Ticklish,” she admits and he grins and files that away but does not tease her about it in the moment. Instead he moves one hand back up her thigh to the place they are joined and teases something else entirely.

“Jack,” she moans in frustration and he stops teasing immediately. Instead he speeds up, both his hand and his hips and soon, soon, very soon she tenses up completely before releasing his name again on a breathy wail that is the most amazing sound Jack has ever heard.

He waits until she has settled, kisses the knee again — too lightly to tickle this time — then resumes his efforts, his own release chasing hers, and when he reaches it, it is her name on his lips and in his head and nestled inside his heart.

Jack fairly collapses on her after that, proud he has the wherewithal to put his forearms down first to prevent the worst of the crushing. 

He stays there for a minute, catching his breath. 

“I can’t believe our first time was on a desk,” he mutters into her neck and he feels her laugh in response. Her hand comes up to stroke his hair. 

“Can’t you?” she questions and he concedes the point with a small hum against her skin. 

Jack raises himself on one elbow so he can see her face again. She smiles at him, trails the hand in his hair down to his jaw. She is flushed and satisfied and happy. 

And he is irrevocably hers. 

“I’m so glad you came back early,” he tells her quietly.

“Me too,” she replies just as softly. Then her warm smile turns a little wicked and Jack knows he is in trouble. 

“So…” she begins. “What else have you been reading?”

**\----------1----------**

Jack strides up the front walk and straight to her front door. For a half a second he thinks about knocking, but honestly this was the kind of situation his key had been made for, so he just lets himself in without a word. As he closes the door behind him and hangs his hat, he can hear her in the parlour, making her way to the foyer to welcome him.

“Hello, Jack!” she greets brightly, leaning on the doorframe. “You’re off early today.”

“Mmmm,” he replies noncommittally, shrugging off his coat to hang it beside his hat. 

“Did something come up?” She looks just a touch worried, and he shakes his head quickly to reassure her.

“No, but it was a very near thing,” he says with the smallest of smirks. “Bedroom?” he suggests, already headed up the stairs.

He doesn’t look back but he can hear her several steps below, trying, for once, to keep up with him.

It doesn’t work.

By the time she catches up to him in her bedroom, his suit coat is on the chair and he’s tugging off his tie.

She blinks twice upon entering the room, before smiling knowingly and shutting the door quietly behind her.

She leans back against the now closed door for a moment before pushing off of it and heading towards him. “You’re awfully sure of yourself.”

“I am, rather,” he confirms, placing the tie on the coat and unbuttoning his waistcoat. “And you’re wearing far too many clothes.”

She tries, unsuccessfully, to stifle another grin, but reaches down to remove a shoe nonetheless. “What’s got into you?” she asks, the second shoe following the first.

Jack shrugs. “You were right about Patterson’s diary. I could smell your perfume on my coat all morning. It's Tuesday… take your pick.”

She nods solemnly at his list while unbuttoning her blouse. Jack is down to his trousers now, so he crosses the room to help her. He spins her around and pulls her top off from behind — careful enough not to damage the fabric, but hungrily enough that she doesn’t mistake his ardor. He reaches around to unfasten her slacks — he’s practiced enough by now that it’s second nature — and then kneels to pull them down her legs, just patient enough to let her step out of them before he flings them back to join his clothes across the room. 

While he was working she had removed her camisole on her own, so she is now down to her smalls, garter and stockings, and he pauses for a moment to enjoy the view. He has always had a thing for a woman in stockings, but the way Phryne wears them elevates the accessory to an artform.

He moves on from the gallery of her legs to the canvas of her back, rising to his feet and painting kisses along her spine as he does. Her small gasps of pleasure at the act make him smile and he spins her again, slower this time. She looks up at him, slightly flushed already from some combination of his attitude and attentions, and smiles. Softly. Lovingly.

“Hello, Jack,” she greets again and he is overwhelmed by how much he loves her. 

“Hello, Phryne.” He reaches up to cup the back of her head and pulls her closer for a kiss. She kisses him back — doesn’t she always — her hands wrapping around his bare back as she does. He doesn’t release her lips after that, not as he walks her backwards to the bed, not as her legs hit the mattress, not as she falls onto the doona. He just covers her like a quilt and keeps kissing her, ramping up her arousal and making his abundantly clear as he does.

Eventually she needs air though, so she pulls back, her head flopping backwards as she catches her breath.

“Hand me my case?” she asks, but Jack shakes his head. She looks at him in confusion. “No?”

“No.”

She raises an eyebrow in question, but he just smiles enigmatically. “We’re not there yet,” he tells her.

“We’re not — Jack, the way you walked in here I’m surprised we’re not done already.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand,” He stands up, slightly gingerly due to his current state, and unclasps one of her stockings before slowly rolling the gossamer material down her leg. “I was in a hurry to get,” a kiss to her knee, avoiding the ticklish spot, “right,” a kiss to her inner thigh, high enough that she shivers, “here.” He unclasps the other stocking, and gives it the same treatment as the first. “And now that I’m here, I intend to take my time.”

“Any particular reason?” she asks, breathless again.

“Patterson’s diary. Your perfume. Tuesday… take your pick.”

She laughs but it turns into a gasp as he kisses her filthily — all lips and tongue — over the silk of her knickers. His open mouth glides over the moist material, his teeth graze the loose edges of her smalls, the fingers of his wandering hands settle on her open thighs and squeeze appreciatively. 

He takes his time, luxuriating in the softness of the now thoroughly wet fabric against his greedy mouth, delighting in the smoothness of her inner thighs as they press his shaven cheeks. Phryne keens and mewls under his ministrations, squirming and arching into his face, seeking more friction. With a frustrated huff, she hooks her impatient fingers into the waistband of her knickers and shoves them down her hips, providing Jack with a face-full of silk. He laughs lightheartedly, elated at her eagerness, and assists the war effort by tugging the knickers off her legs and onto the floor. 

“Impatient, are we?” he mutters into the cluster of moist dark curls above her clit, smiling smugly at her shiver. Phryne weaves her fingers into his hair and tugs in retaliation.

“ _Jack_ ,” she threatens, fisting her hand even tighter. Impatient _and_ demanding. He groans at the blatant hint and proceeds to do all Shakespearean metaphors proud as she gasps and moans under his tongue. 

His fingers join his labours, sliding into her — first one, then two — slowly, almost lazily; enough to drive her mad with need. Her gasps turn breathily high, almost whimpery, as she curves upwards, on the verge of breaking; as she curses his family name and the mother who bore him. Jack smiles and kisses her clit impossibly chastely, withdrawing completely to plant a kiss just above her garter belt.

Phryne raises her head to stare at him, eyes wild, hair tousled. She looks a sight, even though she is nothing but a vision to his biased eyes. Pale and unencumbered, almost feral in her wants. God, but he’s a lucky bastard.

“W-why did you stop?” she pants and pouts, “I was so close, Jack!”

“I know,” he mutters against her skin, sliding his wet fingers past her curls, making her jump and gasp, and then withdrawing. She squirms beneath him and whimpers.

“Damn you!” she cries, fisting one hand into the doona, while the other is trying to push at his shoulder, “ _Jack!_ ”

“Trust me,” he hums and ducks his head to plant one open-mouthed kiss on her clit. Phryne cries out and almost kicks him. 

“This is torture, Inspector!”

Jack smiles and licks the crease where thigh joins hip.

“This is chapter 12, Miss Fisher,” he teases. “And nothing you can’t handle,” he adds, sliding two fingers inside her. He manages three deep thrusts before he feels her tightening around him; she curses when his fingers slip out.

He can feel her hammering heart in the feverish pulse in her inner thigh as he licks and bites at the soft skin. A kiss above her pubic bone, another just under her curls almost leave her trembling beneath him.

“Damn it, Jack!” she cries, clenching her thighs around his head. “You wicked bastard!”

She’s sprawled across the doona, heaving, panting, slick with exertion and lust; he’s rather close to climaxing himself, drunk on her scent and her hungry desire. He should end this, for both their sakes.

“Guilty as charged,” he agrees and bends to double-kiss her in a manner that would surely put Antony’s skills to shame. 

Phryne goes absolutely still, and he chances a glance up her body only to find her arched and clutching at the headboard of her bed with slippery fingers. A flick of his tongue, a touch of his lips, the ghost of his fingers at her entrance, and Phryne breaks and shakes and tears at the seams.

“Oh God,” she cries, loud and clear — enough for all St Kilda to hear — her thighs spasming around Jack’s ears. “Oh God, oh God, _oh God_!”

He doesn’t let her recover, climbing up her body even as she trembles, kissing every inch of bare skin as he goes, murmuring words of praise and adoration onto the planes of her body. His fingers fumble with his trousers and the buttons of his smalls, and he shoves them down impatiently — just as she treated her knickers but a few minutes ago — and spreads her thighs apart with his.

“Wait!” she cries suddenly, her hand on his chest, and he freezes. “My case!”

_Of course._

“Unless we’re still not there yet,” she pants, with a surprising amount of sass. “In which case I may murder you and eliminate the need anyway.”

Jack chuckles and reaches back for the case with a surprising amount of dignity for a man with his trousers around his ankles. He takes the opportunity to remove them entirely, smalls too, and returns to her with the bakelite case. 

“Do you want me to…” he asks, opening it.

She shakes her head and takes the diaphragm from him. “I don’t trust you to do the job in a timely manner, Inspector,” she admonishes and he shrugs with exactly zero remorse.

She deals with their family planning swiftly, then pulls him closer, the fine skin of her inner thighs soft against his hips. 

He enters her with one smooth motion, completely overtaken by the heat of her welcoming body. “ _Fuck_ , Phryne,” he groans, his hand sliding down her thigh, only to hitch it higher and closer to hip. “Do you have any idea what you do to me? Any idea at all?”

“Feeling’s mutual, Inspector!” she gasps, her hands gliding down his back and over his bottom. “This little death may have been my grandest yet!”

Jack laughs breathily and kisses her with gusto, grasping at her thigh a little tighter. He’s elated — bloody ecstatic — at her pleasure and her uninhibited vocalization of it. Her entire body is still thrumming with her previous release, and she breathes sharply, smiling challengingly at him, already eager for another.

Well, he’s nothing if not diligent. 

Without losing a beat of his rhythm, Jack reaches for Phryne’s hands and urges them upwards and over her head as he pushes deeper, longer, fuller into her. Soon enough, she begins to tighten around him again, her face lovely in her raptures — open, free, flushed. He loves her, by God, he loves her — this brilliant, impossible woman, who is bigger than life, than death too, apparently; bigger than the whole damn expending universe.

“Fuck, Miss Fisher,” he swears again for good measure because he can, and because she enjoys it, and because quite frankly he’s not capable of anything more articulate right now. He watches — a little too smugly, he concurs — as her brow furrows and her lips part at his words. She’s on the edge again, hanging off the precipice; a few strokes, a nudge or two of his fingers against her, will surely see her through.

Phryne curves into him, her nipples brushing his slick chest as she pushes upwards, her eyes at half-mast. 

“I love it when you curse,” she breathes into his mouth, her tongue licking past his lips. “So, so… delicious.”

 _In for a penny_ , Jack thinks and flexes his hips as he leans to kiss the sensitive spot just below her ear, desperate to send her over.

“And I,” he hesitates for just a moment before going in for a pound, “I love fucking you,” he mutters, thankful that she cannot see his no doubt flaming face. For all his penchant for boudoir profanity, he’s never used such specifically bawdy talk before and his ears are burning. But Phryne seems to approve. She gasps, and tightens, letting out a few choice oaths of her own, and rewards his obscene endeavor by climaxing rather spectacularly under him. 

And that does it.

“Fuck, fuck, _fuck_ ,” he groans hoarsely and spills inside her, shaking slightly with the force of his release. She mewls softly and threads her fingers in his loose curls, her lips wet and hot on the shell of his ear.

“That was something else, Inspector.”

He chuckles breathlessly — it’s all he can manage, really — and slides off her and onto his side of the bed.

“I’m glad I could be of service, Miss Fisher,” he intones and throws his right arm over his eyes. He wonders if he can allow himself a little snooze before she starts demanding a second round.

Phryne crawls under his left arm and snuggles into him.

“Jack Robinson,” she whispers heatedly, her mouth curving against his ribs in elated mischief, “you are a deep well of welcome surprises.”

He grins and peeks at her from under his arm.

“If you behave,” he mutters huskily and skirts the fingers of his left hand down her back to pinch her bottom. He chuckles gleefully when she yelps, “I might show you what other tricks I’m hiding up my proverbial sleeve.”

Phryne pinches his hip in retaliation and laughs deeply as he jolts a little.

“Serves you right,” she purrs, her fingers already smoothing over the smarting area, “for being a merciless tease.”

He says nothing, just pulls her even closer and presses a soft kiss to the crown of her head. She hums in contentment and looks up at him, her lips seeking his mouth. 

When she moves to stand, he grabs at her wrist softly and tugs her back to his side. She falls into him, laughing.

“Jack, I need to go…” 

“Hurry back,” he mutters, releasing her; his limbs are suddenly very heavy, his breathing deep and even. He feels her lips on his forehead, in his hair.

“I always do.”

His eyes close of their own volition — for a minute, just for a minute, no more — but he can still hear her moving about the room, trying to be as quiet as a mouse. His tired lips quirk slightly at a faint recollection of sea air at night and the telltale scent of French perfume. 

“Oh, and, Jack?” she suddenly calls to him from the doorway, and he cracks his eyes open to take in the image of her leaning against the door, smiling, her robe clinched around her waist. “It’s Wednesday.”

The bed shakes with the force of his laughter. 

**\----------+1----------**

Contrary to what he’d thought early on, not all of Prudence Stanley’s parties are dull. For one thing, the woman knows an almost impossible number of people and many of them are actually quite interesting. And, generally, the ones that aren’t have no desire to speak with a civil servant anyway. So as long as he manages to make it through their assigned seating at dinner, Jack generally has a fine time at these things.

Tonight, however, is _dull_.

Unbearable actually, thanks to three very specific things.

One, her guests tonight are somehow all excruciatingly boring, not a professional musician or rare book collector in sight.

Two, this is _supposed_ to be a night on the town with Phryne after almost a week apart thanks to divergent schedules and determined criminals. They were roped into this at the last minute, which completely derailed Jack’s plans to let off some steam with his partner.

And three, said partner is practically torturing him with that dress.

Jack doesn’t know a lot about fashion, except to never again dismiss it as frivolous, but he knows what he likes and he likes that dress.

It’s dark blue silk, covered by some kind of sheer overlay with an asymmetrical neckline that is driving him crazy. Her neck and clavicle are highlighted to stunning effect and the smooth silk looks like it would be so easy to just slide up her —

“Inspector.”

Jack jumps a little at Prudence’s interruption of his decidedly ungentlemanly thoughts.

She really is dismayingly good at that.

“Mrs Stanley,” he greets placidly, wiping a drop of spilled whisky off his hand and hoping the darker lighting hides his burning ears.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asks, sincerely, and he softens his opinion of the evening. She really is a kind woman, once she lets you past her armor.

“I am,” he fibs, the lie as white as her hair. “Thank you again for the invitation.”

“You’re most welcome,” she replies, then scans the crowd with her sharp eyes. “And if you see where that niece of mine has gone off to, you can pass that along to her as well.”

Prudence wanders off with a huff and Jack stifles a smile, which turns into a frown as he realizes he hasn’t seen Phryne in quite some time. He casually laps the large drawing room they are mostly assembled in, but doesn’t find her, and a small part of him worries she has found trouble instead. 

A moment later a waiter hands him a note and a brief glance at it confirms those suspicions. Jack thanks the young man in polite dismissal before reading it fully.

_Jack,_

_Stumbled on a missing persons case! Desperate situation. Meet me in the front hall lavatory as soon as possible._

_PF_

Jack deposits the remains of his drink on the bar as he leaves the room, walking at a brisk pace towards the room in question. When he arrives he knocks, and after receiving no answer, lets himself in.

“Phryne?” he calls quietly into the dim light.

He is met by two arms wrapping around his neck and familiar red lips fairly assaulting his person with kisses.

He doesn’t even think to stop her.

“But… the case,” he breathes out finally in a laudable moment of clarity. “The missing person?”

“Oh yes,” she says, pulling him towards her as she backs herself against the door. “That would be you. I haven’t seen you all week.” She kisses him again. “Found you,” she says with a wink and he laughs.

“And now I’ve been subjected to a whole evening of you looking like…” she gestures vaguely at his person, “that!” She gives an overdramatic huff. “You can see why the situation is desperate.”

“And what, exactly, would you like me to do about it?” he murmurs against the clavicle he’s been coveting all evening.

His only warning is the wicked smile she gives him before hopping up and wrapping her legs around his waist, and he has the foresight to at least steady one hand on the door as she does.

His other hand automatically moves to support her bottom as he edges closer to her welcoming body. Ordinarily he’d object to a liaison so public, but he’s tipsy on the whisky, and drunk on her and it’s been a _week_ and —

“I see your knickers are missing as well,” he notes as the hand rucking up her frock finds only the silk of her skin underneath the silk of her dress.

She nods at the sink where they lie with her purse. “Case closed,” she teases as she works on freeing him from his trousers and smalls. 

“Family planning?” he questions, moving her into a slightly better position for them both.

“ _Not_ missing,” she informs him with a slightly sloppy kiss. “I’m ready when you are.”

Jack has been ready for a week.

He pulls her tighter to him, his erection nudging against the slightly moist skin of her inner thigh.

“Do you need me to — ” 

She bites at his lip and arches into him, the heat of her body close and welcoming.

“I think you’ll find I’m quite prepared, Inspector.”

Her voice is breathy, husky, full of filthy promise, and Jack nearly swallows his tongue when she reaches between them and strokes two fingers over her clit almost lazily. 

“I took the time,” she moans at a particularly clever twist of her wrist, and raises said fingers to brush against his lips, “to… prepare myself before you arrived.”

 _Lucky bastard_ , his brain supplies as Jack pulls the proffered fingers into his mouth with ardent enthusiasm, _you’re one lucky bastard, Robinson._

She gasps at the gesture, smiling approvingly, her other hand flexing against his nape. He loves being the source of these hitching breaths, of her desperate cries, luxuriates in being the one to bring her to completion. It’s inebriating, to be this close to her, to know her intimately, to be privy to the way she likes her cunt kissed. 

Her fingers slip from his mouth and fly to her own lips when he slides into her, and she bites on them to stifle any loud sounds. His hips jerk at the action.

He moves the hand that’s still balanced against the door to her thigh, leaning into her, hitching it higher, pressing deep and slow and close. She cries against his mouth, the bitten fingers back at work between her thighs, and smiles at him triumphantly through half-lidded eyes.

Trouble, she’s trouble, but God help him if he’s not a ruined man.

“Do you know how long I’ve been thinking of this, Jack?” she gasps, her head lulling against the door as he moves within her with the precision of a trained marksman. “Since the last time. Every — _ah_! — every time we’re together you make me... _w-want_ you more. You make me hungry where most you satisfy, Jack.” Blood rises in her cheeks and down her neck and chest, but the damned smile stays in place. “You make me famished.”

He’s gone, gone, gone — she’ll surely be the death of him. One day, he’ll simply parish in her arms and be rid of this world. But what a way to go — _what a way to go_ — to die in her lap but live in her heart.

And, oh, to be buried in her —

“I want — ” she cries and bites her smiling lips, “to — to write monologues about your lovely mouth... and — _oh God_ — ballads about your c-clever hands... and...and essays about those goddamn perfect thighs.” Her free hand slips from his neck all the way down to his arse, and he nearly comes, nearly loses himself. She’s so tight and ready and willing and he’s hers, hers, hers. “I want to write sonnets about the snap of your hips as you — oh! — as you make me dizzy with need and want.”

He can’t help it; with all his desire to stay as quiet as he can, he can’t stop the rather obscene groan escaping his lips at her little soliloquy. Oh, but she likes it — _she likes it_ — he sees it in the flash of her eyes, and hears it in the tone of her breathy laugh, feels it in the hand she slaps against his mouth.

“And I know what you want, Jack!” she utters, the hand between them now moving as fast as his hips. “You want to… to compose a poem of-of your own r-right now... out of hard obscenities as you fuck me even harder — _o-oh_ — even harder against this door.” Her face contorts prettily, her breath hitches, and he’s nearly there, he’s nearly done for. May God have mercy on his soul. “But you can’t. You can't!" She leans in closer to whisper in his ear. "So think it. Think every... dirty… naughty... wicked thought that comes into that brilliant, filthy mind of yours... _and then do it instead."_

He moans her name into the palm of her hand, and comes so hard he nearly drops her, and almost misses the moment when her own climax takes her. In her valiant attempt to keep quiet, Phryne bites on her lip hard enough to draw blood, and when he kisses her — frantically, desperately — he tastes the copper in his mouth.

“God, woman,” he growls, his forehead dropping to her shoulder even as he’s lowering her to the ground, “are you _trying_ to kill me?”

She laughs and smoothes her frock down her body as he attempts to get his fingers to function; his trousers aren’t about to button themselves up.

“Just a little, darling.” 

He rolls his eyes good-naturedly at her cheek, then turns to her for an inspection. At her nod, he pulls her over to him by her hand and plants a kiss below her ear.

“I shall wait outside, then, shall I?”

She rejoins him after about ten minutes, her makeup perfect, not a hair out of place, and they make their almost dignified way back to the party, snagging a couple of drinks along the way. They manage to avoid the most boring of guests by careful maneuvering, but their luck appears to run out somewhere near the kitchen, where they encounter one very determined, very observant old battle-axe.

“Ah, Inspector, I see you found my wayward niece,” Prudence calls out as she ambles towards the couple. As she gets closer, her keen eyes take them in and she frowns at Phryne.

“Are you alright, my dear?” she asks. “You look flushed.”

Phryne bites her bottom lip for half a second before offering her aunt a reassuring smile. “Oh, yes, the Inspector was just telling me about a book he read recently .”

Prudence looks at her suspiciously. 

“Must have been quite the book,” she notes dryly. 

“Mmmm. He really got into it.”

Jack nearly spits out his whisky which turns into a cough, distracting Prudence enough to look at him with worry now. He shakes his head to assuage her concerns and she clearly decides she has had it with the both of them. With one final look at the pair, she warily takes her leave and makes her way over to an older man down the hall.

“A book, Miss Fisher?” he murmurs dryly, before taking a sip of whisky he actually manages to swallow this time.

“Oh yes,” she replies, leaning into him slightly. “Captivating story, excellent pacing. _Loved_ the climax.”

Jack shakes his head and hides a smile behind his glass. 

“Well then I really think you’ll enjoy the sequel,” he whispers into her ear, and he is rewarded for his efforts when he feels her shiver at the promise he fully intends to deliver on.

After all, Jack is bibliophile and his hunger is fierce.


End file.
